


Of Blood and Strings

by acid rounds (cobwebcorner)



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Gen, M/M, Mind Control, Pre-Slash, Vampires, no one kisses but they're vampires so the biting is a metaphor, rated for blood and swearing, several other resident evil peeps get cameo appearances, whoops my hand slipped where did all these wesker/krauser hints come from
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28786101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobwebcorner/pseuds/acid%20rounds
Summary: Leon's latest vampire hunting mission has gone wrong in all the worst ways possible. Two of his fellow hunters are dead, his partner has sold him out, and now he's been captured by a vampire clan with powers like nothing he's ever seen before.Betrayed and alone, he races against the clock to escape this new vampire clan before the infection of their cursed blood enslaves him to their will. While trying to escape, he discovers another vampire who might be willing to help him out of his predicament--if Leon can keep himself from becoming dinner first.
Relationships: Jack Krauser & Albert Wesker, Leon S. Kennedy/Albert Wesker
Comments: 17
Kudos: 74





	Of Blood and Strings

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a friend who wanted vampires for Christmas. Vampire rules here are a mix of Hellsing, Vampire Hunter D, and shit I made up. I've done my best to go in a different direction from the other vampire AU which Madamn_Resident is doing (which is good stuff so check it out if this is your bag), just so I don’t step on any toes.  
> There isn't much in here to do with Christmas but there's a whole heckin lot of vampires.

Leon came to with a splitting headache and a lot of rude words that didn’t make it past the heaviness of his tongue. In hindsight, attempting to take down that juggernaut of a vampire with a roundhouse kick had been a bad idea. In his defense, he hadn’t realized it was a vampire at the time. He’d assumed the man was yet another thrall, enslaved to the will of the master vampire. The only eye he’d been able to see had been a dull brown, lacking the hellish crimson glow common to all vampires. Well the joke was on him. His leg had been caught, he’d been thrown off his feet and used to rearrange all the room’s furniture, and then he hit the ground hard. When the vampire loomed over him, head spinning and blurring, the left eye had glowed under the heavy brow like a Christmas light. Either the brown eye was glass, or one of the vampire’s contacts had fallen out.

Stupid mistake either way, and boy was he going to pay for it. Reluctantly, he opened his eyes. They had him on his knees with his hands tied behind his back. The chamber around him was a soaring medieval throne room with all the requisite tapestries, carpets, and flickering candles. A man was smiling benevolently down at him from a red throne, dressed in ornate purple robes. His robes were clasped in front by a gold broach shaped like a strange dragonfly, a fat red jewel sparkling at the center of it.

“Let me guess. You must be the blood sucker in chief?” Leon asked.

The man laughed.

“Ahh, you Americans. Always so rude. I am Osmund Saddler, the leader of this fine community. I am sorry if the villagers were a little rough with you. They do not like intruders.” His tone oozed insincerity. He couldn’t even keep the amused grin off his face.

“The tourists must _love_ you guys,” Leon grumbled. He shifted subtly, looking around the room for a sign of any other bound prisoners. There were none. It looked like the man he had freed from the cupboard had managed to escape. “How many lawsuits do you guys get in a year from people you knock out?”

“There are only two fates for those who venture inside our borders. Both result in, shall we say, a more permanent residence? We may be prickly upon a first meeting, but once we have made an acquaintance we are very...reluctant to let them go.”

“Moving to Europe would give me one big headache of a commute,” Leon said lightly.

“I only need to decide,” Saddler plowed on as if Leon had not spoken, “shall you move into a house? Or shall we get you a plot in the graveyard?”

“Here’s a third option. You let me go and fly out of here before my backup comes in and plants a stake through your heart.”

Saddler laughed again. It was so enthusiastic, that laugh, like everything Leon said was the best joke he’d heard in years.

“Ohh, I’m afraid your ‘backup’ will not be coming, Hunter Kennedy. We’ve already spoken with him, you see. He agreed to help bring his partners into our hospitality, in exchange for a little something he’s been wanting for a long time.”

For the first time since waking up, his belly lurched with real unease. Had Krauser set them up? It couldn’t be anyone else. He had already found the bodies of Camis Aroja and Car Nemuerte, strung up and set alight like grisly torches. Fuck. This put him in a much worse position than he first thought.

“Feeble human,” Saddler purred. “Let us give you a taste of our power. Then perhaps you will be a little more accepting of your new home.”

Oh, ok. So he wasn’t even going to try to deny that he was a vampire. Usually the master vampires Leon tangled with at least tried to build some doubt during the first meeting.

Saddler stretched his arm forward, palm up. One of the many robed figures clustered around took it reverently, pulling back the sleeve and then pressing a syringe to the inner arm. Leon stared in baffled silence as the vampire’s cursed blood was sucked up into the belly of the syringe.

He began to struggle as the man and his syringe approached, pulling hard on his ropes and pushing himself back with his heels.

“Wait a minute--you don’t even know if we have compatible blood types!”

Two other pairs of hands seized him by the shoulders, holding him still. They had already taken off the leather coat and collar that he used to protect his neck. Leon could offer no other resistance as the vampire’s servant injected him with the blackish crimson fluid.

Everyone knew what happened to the victim of a vampire’s bite. From the moment a vampire ingested your blood, it could begin to enforce its will on you. The more it drank from you, the further under its spell you fell, until you were nothing but a dazed and hypnotized slave wandering in a stupor. You became a thrall, unwilling servant to the parasite living off your veins. Leon didn’t know enough about esoteric studies to explain the why and how of it, he only knew that vampires were able to use the connection of shared blood to exert their influence.

So what the hell was having vampire blood inside him going to do?

He struggled to keep calm, to think, as the needle left his skin. His gaze darted from one to another of the grinning faces surrounding him. These thralls--and they had to be thralls--didn’t act like any he’d ever seen before. They didn’t stumble around like brainless zombies, didn’t look hypnotized, didn’t show any of the normal symptoms. They were agile, aware, and inhumanly strong, to the point where Leon had begun to doubt it was a vampire infestation he was dealing with. He had only seen two vampires (three now, counting the giant that had knocked him out) and it was unheard of for such a small group to control an entire village. So few vampires couldn’t possibly be drinking blood from so many people at once.

But if they’d found some other way of bending humans to their will...

“You will come to appreciate our little gift in time,” Saddler assured him as the servant withdrew. “Why don’t we give you a room to stay for the night? Later, we can have a little discussion about whether you shall be staying with us or....returning to your fellow hunters.”

Leon’s skin crawled. If this did to him what he was afraid it might, and then they sent him _back_ to HQ, a thinking, reasoning, undetectable thrall, he shuddered to think of the damage he could do. The vampires had been trying to infiltrate the organization since its conception.

At a careless wave of Saddler’s hand, the men carried him away. The ‘room’ they had prepared for him was a dark, dripping dungeon down a long flight of stairs. There were windows up near the ceiling, much too high for him to reach even if he piled up all the little wooden crates that were lying around. At least they were nice enough to untie him before leaving.

Leon rubbed at his sore wrists, trying to ground himself with the physical sensation. He briefly touched the sore spot on his neck where the needle had gone in. He couldn’t tell if it was really tingling yet or if he was just imagining the sensation, hyper-vigilant to any changes within his body.

A harsh growl emitted from his left. There was only one cell down here, and apparently his captors had not put him in it because it was already occupied. A huge man clothed in nothing but torn pants and a few pieces of medieval armor stood behind the bars, twitching and grumbling. Tufts of fur stuck out from his skin in patches. His eyes had been sewn shut. The men had said something about enjoying the company of the ‘ _garrador’_ before they left, or something like that (Leon’s spanish was very rusty). This must have been the Garrador.

Leon climbed to his feet very quietly, never taking his eyes off the man. He retreated back up the stairs. At the top he found a very sturdy metal door shut tight against his escape. It was locked, of course. He didn’t have a lock pick with him, and even if he had, the bolt couldn’t be reached from this side. The windows from the upper level were too far for him to jump to, even at this height. Reluctantly, he returned downstairs.

Leon leaned his back against the central pillar and sighed. He couldn’t believe Jack had sold him out like this. And for what? Had they turned him? Maybe Leon should have seen this coming. Jack hadn’t been the same since he lost the arm. He’d become withdrawn, broody--even after he’d come back into the field with the new prosthetic, the once easy camaraderie between them had chilled. His smiles, always few and far between, had vanished altogether. Leon had thought Jack just needed time to adjust. He’d never expected anything like this.

Maybe if he’d pushed more, talked to him...

No point crying over spilled milk. It was too late to do anything for Jack now.

Leon did a circuit of the dungeon, looking for any kind of weak point in the ancient walls. There had been an earthquake around here recently which had left widespread damage in other parts of the castle. There might have been similar damage here which the vampires hadn’t noticed.

A stark slice of shadow behind his new roommate’s legs caught his eye. A small fissure cracked the wall there. It might be big enough for a man of Leon’s size to wiggle through. The problem was getting to it. He tested the cell door, making it rattle on its hinges. The Garrador in the cage went very still, then began to growl again in earnest. Leon eyed it warily.

The door was so old and rusty he probably could do it in with one good kick. Then he would have to figure out how to get past his roommate. The bars holding the creature against the wall looked all but rusted through. They were also the only things standing between him and the foot long claws attached to the Garrador’s fingers.

Well, when his choices were between “get torn to shreds” or “wait to become the unwilling slave of a blood-sucking leech”, the decision seemed pretty obvious to him. Time was on the vampires’ side. He couldn’t afford to waste it.

The outer door gave at one good thrust of Leon’s heel into it, wrenching off its broken hinges and clanging to the floor. The Garrador roared as if Leon had kicked him instead, and with one mighty thrust of his arms he broke the bars containing him. With reflexes honed by years of hunting superhuman monsters, Leon dove through the open cell, ducked under the swinging claws, and jammed half his body through the hole before the giant even got his bearings. The Garrador swung around blindly, his claws scraping and banging against the walls, showering Leon with a fine spray of dust and small shards of stone.

He eased the rest of his body through the crack, and none too soon. The giant roared again, its claws scraping up the rim of the fissure where his shoulder had been five seconds ago. He was damn lucky that the hole didn’t lead to a dead end.

It was too dark to see anything beyond the narrow pool of light that leaked out from the dungeon, and even that was half-blotted out by the dancing shadow of the rampaging Garrador. He crawled boldly into the dark. The floor sloped away sharply, smooth floor giving way to broken rock. With no idea where he was or where this path would lead him he kept moving forward, over rock and shattered furniture, down holes, through raw tunnels newly opened by shaking earth, feeling his way with his hands and his feet.

He couldn’t say how long he traveled or how much time had passed when he finally stopped climbing downward. He’d reached somewhere with smooth walls again, another dungeon, if the discarded chains he felt said anything. Yet his boots sank into something soft, a carpet half-rotted by time and neglect. There were brackets on the walls holding unlit torches. If only he still had his lighter, he could have used one of them.

He turned from his exploration of the wall and froze. Two pinpricks of red light were staring at him from the other end of the room. He groped behind him, hand closing on the solid wood of the torch. It wasn’t sharp, but he’d take what he could get. The red dots did not approach, only hung there staring towards him, unblinking. Maybe it was like the Garrador, an uncooperative beast imprisoned behind bars he couldn’t see.

Those red dots seemed to follow him all the way across the room, like the eyes of a portrait. He didn’t turn his back on them. With one hand he held the torch in front of him like the world’s most ineffective shield, with the other he pawed along the wall, feeling out the dimensions of the room. Eventually he found the doorway on the other side. Or, what used to be a doorway. The whole of it was clogged up with debris, big chunks of stone and loose earth. Heart sinking, he turned around fully to try and shift some of the rock. If this was a dead end--not only did he not want to be trapped with whatever those red eyes belonged to, but he didn’t think he could even get back up the way he came.

“You can’t get out that way,” a calm male voice observed from somewhere behind him. In _English._

Leon was startled so badly he dropped the torch. He scrambled after it with an oath, patting along the smooth floor until his palm brushed solid wood. Thank god. He didn’t know what he’d do if he lost his weapon.

He whirled around and glared at the source of the voice, meeting those two red dots again with the torch held out between them like a club.

“There _was_ a hidden exit from the castle there, but the walls have caved in. A human won’t be strong enough to move it.”

“You can talk?” Leon observed, regaining his cool. Not just some beast forgotten in the basement, then. If the stranger hadn’t attacked him by now, he probably couldn’t.

“There’s an old tinderbox in the corner to your right, if you would like to see for yourself.”

Leon sidestepped in that direction, once again uneasy about turning his back on this person. His searching hands found the crumbling old box just where it had been described. Inside he felt out two old pieces of metal that had to be flint and steel. Survival classes had been ages ago, but about a minute of dedicated fumbling he managed to get a good enough spark to light his torch.

It bathed the room in a dim and flickering orange light, very medieval, a good addition to the atmosphere of the gothic castle. Looking at it in its entirety, the space was an odd cross between a dungeon and an altar. The walls were plain, smooth, short, with fastenings for chains and places for bars. But then there were the carpets, a once lurid red dulled by dust, and the ornate carvings around the stone dais on which the owner of those red eyes stood.

‘Stood’ might not have been the right word. His feet were braced on it, certainly. He hung from a pair of chains fastened to his wrists that stretched his arms out in a spread eagle position. The shackles had large, rough steel crosses affixed to them, and whatever flesh they touched had been burned black. The man was pale as the moon, his red eyes glaring brightly in contrast to his ghostly pallor, and he had a nest of mussed golden hair falling about his ears. The torn, rotten rags of his clothing hung off a streamlined yet powerful body.

“A vampire, huh?” Leon observed. Only one of the cursed undead could look in such good shape after being chained up long enough for their clothes to rot. Fortunately for both their dignities, the man’s pants were mostly holding together. “Looks like you’ve been down here a while. Who did you piss off?”

“My sire.”

“Saddler?” Leon guessed. “Or maybe Salazar? He seems easier to rile up.”

The vampire tilted his head. “Who?”

OK, not any of Saddler’s crew. This vampire had been stuck here before the newcomers took over the castle. Leon rearranged his mental timeline a little.

“Are you...the source of their vampire blood?”

“I’ve heard people wandering around the castle up above. None of them have found me, yet.” The vampire looked past Leon, at the debris blocking the door. “That passageway closed up only recently.”

“The earthquake,” Leon cursed under his breath. “I don’t suppose you know any other ways out?”

“I’ve felt a draft coming from the direction you came in, and that’s all.”

Dammit. He was trapped down here, after all. At least this vampire couldn’t attack him, and was capable of holding a conversation. That was a distinct improvement from his previous cellmate.

“I guess I’m forgetting my manners. Name’s Leon Kennedy. Vampire hunter.”

“Albert Wesker,” the vampire returned wryly. The irony of the situation apparently was not lost on him. “Vampire.”

“Sorry I don’t have any stakes on me, or I’d be happy to put you out of your misery.”

“It’s just as well that you don’t, then.”

“You’d...rather go on, stuck like this?” Leon raised his eyebrows, incredulous. “Because it looks pretty damn painful.”

“One does not become a vampire without a very strong will to live, no matter at what cost.”

“Huh.” Leon filed the information away. The psychology of the enemy wasn’t something he’d ever spent a lot of time thinking about, even though he knew it could be useful. “So who was your sire?”

“An old leech by the name of Lord Spencer.”

 _That_ name rang through Leon like a gong, rattling his bones.

“Is that the same Spencer who organized the siege on Raccoon?”

“Yes, that one.”

Leon grit his teeth, trying very hard to keep his mind grounded in the present and not fall back into memories of the incident that had exposed to the world the fact that the monsters of legend were still around and very, very real.

“Then I’m glad you pissed him off and I hope he’s still mad. What did you do?”

“I tried to kill him,” Wesker replied off-handedly.

“That’s...not possible? I thought vampires couldn’t attack their sires.” Once again he chafed at not having studied the theory behind it, but he knew how it fell out in practice. The relationship between a vampire and their sire was very similar to that between a thrall and a vampire. Shared blood, a forced connection, the older and stronger enforcing their will on the younger.

Wesker smiled, a ghastly cruel expression that showed off his inhumanly long canines.

“Oh, I found a way. This upset him, naturally. He feared that I might share the secret with his other unhappy children. So he locked me down here.”

“Why not just unmake you? If you’re such a threat to his authority...”

Wesker shrugged a shoulder, making the chains rattle.

“He thinks that enough time will break me. He always has underestimated me.”

Leon chewed at his lip, thinking hard. If the bond was similar, if the mechanics were similar...could a thrall turn on their master the same way?

“How--” he started, but it came out a little too eager, cracking his voice, so he had to try again. “How did you do it?”

Wesker’s eyes seared through him, penetrating. He felt pinned by twin red lasers.

“I can’t imagine a hunter would care very much about freeing vampires from their sires. It’s so much easier just to kill them all, isn’t it?”

Caught, Leon attempted to brush it off. By this point he was a master at pretending not to take things seriously.

“Just curious. Having something shake up the vampire hierarchy sure wouldn’t hurt us.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t. The ensuing chaos would make it very easy for you to wipe out even the more powerful clans.” Wesker continued to study him, unblinking. Leon hadn’t noticed before, how vampires didn’t need to blink. This was the longest he’d spent around one that wasn’t pretending to be human. “No. That’s not why you’re asking. It’s something more personal to you.”

Leon swallowed, his face carefully blank. He’d cocked it, asking too quickly. Here he’d thought Wesker might be arrogant enough to boast about his achievements without considering why Leon wanted to know.

“You’re not bitten. And you’re not turning.” Wesker cocked his head, as if trying to distinguish a faraway sound. “But there’s _something,_ a shadow growing over you. You’re becoming a thrall, aren’t you?”

Dammit all to hell. Leon clenched his teeth and looked away.

“The new guys who moved in upstairs have got a really non-traditional way of doing things,” Leon said.

“I can see that. I suppose they’ll be finding me sooner, rather than later.” Wesker tilted his head back to look up, as if he could look at them through the ceiling. Maybe he could.

Leon wished he’d never gone through the stupid hole. As soon as he finished turning, his knowledge would be Saddler’s knowledge. And then, yes, he’d lead them straight to this imprisoned vampire. They would probably free him, and then there’d be four vampires to worry about in stead of three. Not that Leon would be fighting any of them. He’d be busy destroying the hunters from within, dancing on Saddler’s puppet strings.

He paced again to the wall of rock barring his exit, where he climbed up and tried fruitlessly to shift some of the top-most stones. They were huge and heavy, the jagged surface digging pin-prick scores into his palms. It accomplished jack shit, and he hadn’t really been expecting to get anywhere, but he had to do _something._

“You have a little more time than a regular thrall. The shadow is growing slowly,” Wesker observed behind him.

Leon grabbed the smallest of the stones, a big one wedged just under the door frame, and pulled with all his might. The stone shifted, just a little, and then his grip slipped. His palm tore open with a hot sting of pain, and he went tumbling down to the ground to land hard on his hip. Leon sat up, groaning. He restrained the childish urge to smash his fist into the ground.

“I have a proposition,” Wesker said.

Of course he did. Wary, Leon looked back. Wesker’s eyes were fixed on his bleeding palm, a familiar hunger burning in their depths.

“These chains have weakened with age. The only reason they can still hold me is because I am starved. Give me a taste of your blood, and I can free us both. If you’re very generous, I might even tell you how a thrall can rebel against his master.”

“And what guarantee do I have that you won’t rip my throat out and take everything?”

“None.” There was that cruel smile again. The canines seemed even longer than before, sharp and glinting like knives in the torchlight. “But you don’t have much choice, do you? Your options are between certain slavery or uncertain death.”

The leech was right, but he didn’t have to say it. Leon got up and began to pace, twisted with indecision. It really wasn’t much of a choice. Free the vampire now or let someone else free him later. Die now, or be enslaved later. Or, if by some miracle the vampire decided to keep his word, escape from here and maybe have enough time to warn the other hunters before he turned. Either way, the growing shadow of Saddler’s will would eventually hollow him out into a puppet. There wasn’t much hope for him unless someone managed to ram a stake through Saddler’s heart.

“Why would you bother helping me escape?” he asked, rounding on the bound vampire. “Your leech friends will be coming along soon.”

“I’ve never heard of this Saddler. I know nothing about him. I don’t know what he might demand from me in exchange for my freedom. I would much rather bargain with you.”

Leon raised a considering look to the ceiling.

“Saddler’s the kind of guy who would say ‘I don’t drink...wine’ unironically.”

Wesker made a face.

* * *

Leon did not give his answer immediately. He spent a little time pacing, and even more time searching for another way out, and probably more time than was healthy trying and failing to shift any of the mass blocking the doorway. Wesker made no further attempts to cajole him one way or the other, merely watching him pace about and tug at the walls. He only spoke up once unprompted, to ask what year it was, and appeared bewildered when Leon told him.

Leon knew he shouldn’t let a vampire go, just on principle. He was a hunter. It went against everything he stood for. If he freed Wesker, then wouldn’t he be partly to blame for whatever harm Wesker did afterward? Even if someone else would have done it anyway, the blood would still be on his hands. He should just give up. He should climb back up the winding dark tunnels to the upper dungeon and sit there, wait patiently for his master to come back to him like a good--

“Leon.”

The thoughts popped like a soap bubble, and Leon found himself halfway inside the very tunnel he had climbed down, hands stretched up to grasp the shelf of rock above. He jerked away from the dark passage, his heart suddenly pounding. Those hadn’t been his thoughts. He hadn’t told his body to come over here. It was already starting. He was losing himself.

“You don’t have much time left,” Wesker said.

Leon buried his hands in his bangs and pulled, fighting to center himself. Time was his enemy. He couldn’t afford to waste a single extra second.

Resolute, he turned to face the vampire who watched him with such careful neutrality. Wesker’s eyes flicked down to his bleeding palm, and then back up to his face. That stoic composure was a mask, Leon knew, over a hunger that raged like a bonfire. He could see the heat of it leaking through the windows of Wesker’s eyes.

No time, and he had to pick a monster. Well, he was going to pick this one. It was the only real chance he had.

He made his feet cross the distance to the dais, made himself come all the way up in front of the vampire even though every hard-trained instinct in him wanted to run the other direction. Eye to eye, he and the vampire regarded each other.

“Either keep your word or kill me outright, that’s all I ask.”

He held the hand with the torn palm up towards Wesker’s mouth. Wesker looked at it with something like rapture, his lips parting enough that the sharp ends of his long canines poke out. He bent his head forward as far as he could reach, the chains clinking gently as they pulled taut. Again Leon hesitated, his arm just out of reach. Wesker’s lip pulled up, a needy hiss escaping him. The torturous proximity of that blood to his lips was cracking his composure, exposing the agony of the thirst underneath.

 _Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it,_ a little voice insisted in Leon’s head. But under that, quietly yet with growing volume, was someone else’s voice, insisting he come back to Saddler.

Steeling himself, Leon pressed his wrist to Wesker’s mouth. Immediately the vampire bit down, the four sharp canines driving through his skin like hot knives through butter. Leon couldn’t quite strangle a yelp. He’d never been bitten before, not even in Raccoon when the blood-mad ghouls were everywhere. It was exactly as painful as one would expect.

Soon enough that pain numbed as the special compounds in the vampire’s saliva swept through his system, switching agony to euphoria. Vampire venom, they called it, even though it was more addictive than poisonous. Leon swayed on his feet, grabbing the vampire’s shoulder to steady himself as his strength drained out through his wrist.

The chains holding the vampire prisoner snapped, the noise of it barely registering through the fuzzy cloud that was smothering all his senses. Fingers like steel captured his arm and squeezed, pressing his open wrist even tighter against those fangs. This was--bad. This was bad and he needed to do something or he was going to die. He grappled fruitlessly against the vampire’s superior strength, unable to break away. His foot kicked something small and metallic.

One of the crosses that had been ornamenting the chains had fallen by his foot. He scooped it up and rammed it into Wesker’s neck. Wesker seized up, a scream of agony muffled by the arm in his mouth. He let go. Leon backed up and kept backing up until stone hit his back, the cross held out in front of him in warning. Wesker did not chase him. The vampire had fallen back into the wall on the opposite side, where he huddled on himself, digging his own claws into his forearms and shuddering. A fresh burn in the shape of the cross painted black stripes over his neck, like a gothic tattoo. With obvious effort, Wesker peeled his eyes open.

“Apologies,” he rasped. “It is...difficult to control myself when I am this hungry.”

He didn’t look sorry. He was eyeing Leon’s bloodied wrist with uncomfortable intensity, his eyes wide and dark. The hunger radiating from him was chilling to watch. This was a feeling Leon was familiar with, the sensation of being in a room with a hungry predator. It really made you empathize with hamburgers and steak dinners. He was pretty sure the cross was the only reason Wesker hadn’t bounded across the room for a go at seconds.

“My eyes are up here,” Leon said.

Wesker slowly straightened, dragging his gaze up to Leon’s face. He licked his lips, a contemplative frown on his face.

“I can taste him inside you.”

“Wow Jesus, you want to rephrase that?”

“It’s like a single rancid blueberry baked at the center of a cake. This...Saddler, is it? That he could control others through giving them his own blood...interesting. I had never heard of such a form of blood magic.”

The vampire arched his back, making a noise that was almost carnal when he stretched his arms out behind him.

"You OK over there?" Leon asked dryly.

“I may not have to worry about sores or bloodflow the way humans do,” he said, “but it feels _very_ good to be able to move.” His sharp eyes focused on Leon for a second before sliding away, averted by the cross. “Ahh, but you don’t have time to waste, do you?”

“Sometime this century would be great."

Wesker crossed to the blocked doorway, where he stood assessing the rubble. For the first time, Leon could see the vampire’s back, and the coiling black snake tattoos that covered the pale skin beneath the rags of clothing. It might have been a trick of the torchlight, an illusion helped by the shifting muscles in Wesker’s back, but Leon could have sworn they were moving.

With his superior strength and speed, Wesker had the rock slide cleared in under a minute. He tossed the last rock to the side, where it landed with a dull thud. Fresh air washed over them through the reopened passage, glorious to Leon’s nose. Wesker turned on his heel, catching Leon’s eyes. Vampire and vampire hunter regarded each other, at an impasse once more--only this time, the vampire was free and Leon had a weapon. Presently Wesker smiled, bowing slightly and holding one arm out in invitation for Leon to proceed through the door.

“You first,” Leon said. He groped behind him for the lit torch, took it from its sconce, and held it out along with the cross.

“If you insist.”

Just like that Wesker vanished, a puff of black smoke all that remained of his presence in the doorway. Leon looked around, double checking that the vampire hadn’t tried to sneak up behind him.

“Are you coming?” Wesker called, his voice echoing down the hall.

Irritated, Leon took a deep breath and strode forward to follow him. The doorway led to a short hall which opened up into a broad circular room with a white marble coffin and a headpiece decorated in the same dragonfly-like symbol that Saddler had been wearing. The room had a huge hole in the ceiling, which tunneled upward far higher than the feeble light of the torch could reach. It was like they were standing at the bottom of a well.

Wesker awaited him beside the coffin.

“Is that yours?” Leon asked.

“Oh, no. This is much older than me.” He lifted the massive stone lid with one finger, cast a disinterested glance inside, and let it fall. “Only bones. The item of interest is this, over here.” Wesker gestured to the staff.

“What’s so special about it?” Leon asked.

“Don’t you want to have a closer look? There’s nothing to be frightened of.”

Leon met his eyes evenly. He would not risk getting any closer to the vampire than he had to. As that careless display of strength had proved, this vampire would be more than a match for any human in combat.

Wesker chuckled, amused. He reached out and pressed some hidden switch in the center of the dragonfly. At his touch, the entire room began to shake, nearly throwing Leon to the ground. The entire floor glided smoothly upward, a hidden elevator taking them up through that hole in the ceiling.

They had a long ways to climb upward, and Leon spent the entire ride glaring suspiciously at the elevator’s other passenger. For his part, Wesker seemed unconcerned, taking the time to smooth his hair back from his face into something resembling order.

"Well? Were you going to tell me the secret to breaking free from a vampire’s will?"

"In good time." Wesker smiled, serene. "Perhaps when we meet up with this Saddler, I can provide a demonstration."

Yeah, right.

Soon enough the outermost glow from the torch lighted on a flat ceiling at the top of the shaft. Were they to be crushed? No--a seam split the rock, stone grinding loudly against stone as the ceiling opened to let the elevator pass through. Here the walls became rougher, covered in slime and old roots, the occasional bones tangled in with them. When the elevator reached its destination, coming flush with the upper floor, he was not outside as he had originally hoped. They were inside some sort of cavern, with scattered ruins poking out from the dirt.

“What is this place?”

“The remains of a castle far older than the one that sits on top,” Wesker supplied. He walked off with purpose into the darkness. Leon followed, just to keep the vampire visible within the torch’s pool of light.

The vampire led him to a raised platform of smooth stone blocks. It was about one story above the ground, accessible only by an old iron ladder. A curve of darkness cut into the wall beyond its ledge suggested a doorway might be up there.

And the only way up was the ladder. Fan-fucking-tastic. Leon stood at its feet and scowled upward, debating with himself. There was no way to climb that without at least one hand free. He would have to drop either the torch or the cross. In the complete darkness of the caves with a hungry vampire beside him, either option was suicide. A surreptitious glance to the side showed him Wesker standing with his arms crossed, torso leaned back slightly so he could better see the upper platform. He seemed oblivious to Leon’s predicament. Without warning, Wesker crouched and sprang upwards, clearing the distance easily with a single jump. He landed lightly on both feet and walked out of view.

This was his chance. Leon shoved the cross between his teeth and hurried up the ladder as fast as he could with one hand occupied. He felt a little like an old pirate, clambering up the sails with weapon in mouth. A mechanical thud and some clanking sounded above--perhaps a gate opening.

One foot from the top with safety so near he could taste it, a hand shot down from above and latched around his shoulder. He was wrenched upward, away from the solid ladder bars and up into open air. Wesker’s red eyes glittered in the torchlight, triumphant.

Leon tried to get the cross from his mouth, but too late. A solid backhand from Wesker knocked the holy symbol out of his grip, where it spun off the edge and landed far below with a soft ‘tink’. Wesker grinned down at him, one arm locked like an iron band around Leon’s torso, pressing him close against Wesker’s body. His feet dangled in open air.

“No need to fret,” Wesker soothed him, thin lips parting to bare fangs. “Is this not the real reason why you freed me? Because you would rather have death than servitude?” On that word, ‘death’, he cruelly tugged Leon’s head to one side by his hair, exposing his bare neck. “Believe me, it’s a sentiment I can understand.” He bent in for the bite, cold breath puffing against Leon’s skin.

Leon shoved the torch into his shoulder. The rags of old clothing were dry as tinder and caught immediately. The flesh of the starved vampire underneath was not much wetter. Wesker howled, releasing Leon immediately to bat at the flames. Leon dropped, and by reflex alone managed to throw his arms out and catch the edge of the platform before he fell all the way down to the cavern floor. He kicked and wriggled his way on to it, keeping a death grip on the torch.

That curve of shadow he’d seen from below did prove to be a doorway, one flanked by twin busts of long dead nobility, the teeth of an open gate poking out from its side. Leon ran through it, leaving Wesker cursing behind him.

The fire would not distract the vampire for long. With his cross lost and all pretense of truce between them evaporated, Leon knew he had to hide well and hide fast. There was no outrunning a vampire. To his relief, the narrow tunnel opened up into a modest square room, furnished with carpets and lit by torches. He found himself a marble statue housed in a little alcove that had just enough room for him to hide behind. He left the torch behind in an empty sconce and squeezed into the narrow space. With deep, even breaths, he forced his heartbeat to slow. It was a technique all seasoned hunters knew well--one did not have a prayer of eluding a vampire without the ability to quiet one’s heart.

A soft noise like splitting air, and bare feet tapped against the floor in the center of the room. The vampire was here. Leon could barely hear him, but he could smell the stink of burnt flesh and hair. Another soft rush of wind, and the smell vanished. The feet were above him now, tracking light footsteps on the ceiling of his hiding place. Then they were gone.

“Oh little hunter, where did you go?” the vampire purred, anger simmering beneath the dulcet tones. His voice echoed against the stone; he might have been a single room away, or farther down. “Didn’t you want to know the secret? To break free from that shadow growing in your mind?”

Like hell Leon was gonna fall for that.

“You know you’re only prolonging the inevitable...”

Quietly, still half in the meditative state that kept his heartbeat low, Leon crawled out from his hiding place. He grabbed the torch and went the opposite way from Wesker’s voice, through a doorless entry to a broad, gloomy chamber. Scented smoke poured out from lit braziers, covering the room in a thin haze of incense. Leon pressed himself to the wall beside the door, listening carefully to make sure the vampire hadn’t decided to swing back this way.

“ _¡Allí está!_ ” bellowed a guttural voice from above.

Caught off guard, Leon whipped his head up. The wall beside him did not go all the way to the ceiling, as he had first assumed. No, there was a loft up there, without any kind of guardrail for safety. Three men dressed in the rough, simple clothing of the villagers were leaning over the edge, pointing and yelling at him.

Shit. This was definitely going to catch Wesker’s attention. He bolted across the room, praying there was a door hidden somewhere in the smoke.

_“¡Cógelo!”_

_“¡No dejes que se escape!”_

There was a door, standing unobtrusively in the corner. The angry voices followed him from room to room, always above him, keeping pace while he sprinted. Briefly he lost them, by going through another overgrown rocky tunnel. The tunnel let out into a room so broad and high he could not see the ceiling. Two pairs of staircases led up through a series of landings. As far as he could see, there was nothing in here but braziers, a large brass bell the size of a man, and one crumbling skeleton nailed to the wall via a short sword through the teeth. He didn’t have time to wonder what purpose its ancient builders had designed this room for, nor about the identity of those bones. There was a vampire somewhere behind him, and chances were the villagers could use those stairs to get down to his level.

Yet neither of these dangers turned out to be his most immediate concern. In his distraction he unthinkingly walked across a square pattern in the flooring without testing it. The centermost block depressed under his weight with an ominous click. A hammer leapt out of the wall to clang noisily against the bell, the low tone ringing through the chamber with a volume he could feel. For a second, the purpose of the trap baffled him. A bell? That was it? No spikes, no boulders, no flaming arrows?

Then he registered the muffled roaring behind him, and when he turned around the wall opened to unleash a Garrador. Its claws were out and it was running straight for him, for the trap had positioned him neatly between the blind monster and the bell.

Leon rolled to one side, narrowly missing the sweep of those deadly claws. Hearing him, the Garrador stopped short and swung its arms wildly, slicing up the air around it. He backed away quietly, trying not to draw further attention.

“ _¡Agárrenlo!”_ a voice roared from above. Leon grimaced.

Everything that had been after him was going to come at him at once, and all because he hadn’t watched his step. Well, if he was going to be mobbed, he better meet them armed at least. He eased his way over to the skeleton and pulled the sword out from its skull, making the ancient skeleton topple against the floor. Then he had to duck and roll to avoid having four metal claws nail _his_ skull to the wall in exactly that same spot. The Garrador got its claws stuck in the stone and snarled. While it was struggling to free itself, Leon noticed a big red gash down its back.

This thing wasn’t a vampire, nor was it quite a werewolf, but Saddler had definitely made it. Leon could see that dragonfly symbol, gold and glowing, nestled within the red meat of its open back wound. On a hunch, he hefted the sword and drove its rusty point in to the center of the symbol. The Garrador screamed and flailed. It took a few more good strikes to kill the thing completely. When it finally fell to the ground, lifeless, Leon backed away and wiped the blood off his forehead.

_“¡Está en la trampa!”_

The Garrador had died not a moment too soon. The villagers who had been pursuing him doggedly from the upper floor were finally pouring down the stairs to meet him. Three against one, two armed with farming equipment and one bearing a torch. Leon brandished the rust sword and sank into a ready stance. These were odds he liked a lot better than trying to go toe to toe with a single vampire. The first man yelled and lunged for him with a pitchfork. He sidestepped, letting the man overreach and stumble, pitchfork empty of prey. The next man came after him with a sickle, which he ducked, and followed through by swinging the hilt of the sword at the back of the man’s head.

The third--

The third was suddenly hoisted into the air, his torch flying away across the floor, flame guttering. Wesker’s teeth sank into the younger man’s neck, silencing his panicked yelling. Leon backpedaled away fast. The other two villagers stared, their enslaved minds apparently struggling to come up with the appropriate reaction to this turn of events.

A rusty sword might have been enough to put that blind wolf-mutant down, but it would do him no good against a vampire. Leon ran up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time, past multiple landings all the way up to the second floor. There he sank into a crouch behind a pillar and peered cautiously over the edge. The man in Wesker’s arms had gone limp, his eyes staring sightlessly upward. His skin was turning grayer by the minute. From this vantage point, Leon could just see the top plane of Wesker’s left shoulder blade, and the black snakes inked across his skin. There was no mere trick of the light now--they weren’t subtly shifting their heads anymore. They writhed like living things, glistening coils wrapping and weaving around each other, heads waving to and fro.

The patches of burnt skin left by Leon’s torch shrank into nothing, replaced by new flesh and hair that glowed with health. Another sight he’d seen all too often, that of vampire and victim trading skin complexion. When Wesker drew his head back from the man’s throat, the villager was dead.

“Is everyone here going to have that rancid aftertaste?" Wesker complained, dropping the lifeless husk to the floor. “I do hate having to poach someone else’s livestock.”

The other two villagers, apparently having worked out that this vampire was not one of their masters, turned and tried to run for the trick wall the Garrador had sprung out of. The first man hauled down a lever as he passed, beckoning the wall closed. He was able to make it through the shrinking opening just in time. The second man, Wesker caught inches away from safety. He curled around him and bit through the neck, just as roughly as he had the first.

Leon didn’t need to watch the second man die. He needed to get out, before he became meal number three. Wesker had been chained up and starving for years--who knew how many people he would have to kill to satiate his hunger? It hurt him, having to leave a human to be devoured like this--and they were still humans, these villagers, even if they were trying to kill him--but there was nothing he could do.

Once more he meditated to quiet his heart before slowly inching back from the edge of the platform. There were two doorways up here: one that led back to the upper loft of the previous room, and one that led elsewhere. He moved towards the latter. Below, there was a soft thump as a second body was dropped like so much trash.

“Quite a jolly mess you’ve made of this beast.” Wesker’s voice drifted up from below. “Your skills are impressive.” A swish of air, and suddenly the voice was much closer. Leon froze in place, peering around carefully, searching for the vampire. “I suppose I should expect no less from a survivor of Raccoon City.”

Leon could not stop his heart from jumping at the mention. Wesker had bitten him. Of course he would have taken the chance to dive into Leon’s mind and rifle through his memories.

Christ, where was the leech? He sounded so close, but Leon couldn’t see him anywhere.

A warm red droplet plashed against the back of Leon’s hand where it was braced flat against the floor. He looked at it, the little circle of blood that had burst up near his knuckles, a cold certainty seizing over his heart. His grip tightened on the sword. He arched and flung it upwards with all his might, sending it sailing all the way up to the ceiling. Above him, the vampire jerked his head to the side, narrowly missing a face-full of rusty steel. The sword stuck into the ceiling point-first and quivered beside Wesker’s ear.

Wesker’s dark chuckle followed Leon as he bolted out of the room.

 _He’ll be on the ground by now. Turn and ward him off with the fire,_ his instincts told him. Leon obeyed them. Even though he hadn’t heard a sound, not so much as a touch of heel against stone, his long experience told him exactly how fast the vampire would move. He pivoted on his foot and swept the torch in a wide arc. Wesker jumped back with his hands up, smirking still.

“So anxious to leave?”

“Sorry. I’m gonna have to cut our date short,” Leon said. Despite his joking tone, he was laser focused on the vampire’s movements, ready to swing the torch at the first sign of an attack. “If you wanted me to stick around, you should have put out more.”

“Didn’t I tell you I would only reveal my secret if you were _generous_? You only gave me a taste.”

The reminder of how it felt to have those teeth buried in his arm, the syrupy warm haze of the vampire’s venom lulling him gently towards death, sent a wave of hot rage through him. After all his years of hunting, the first leech to get a bite out of him was one that had been chained to the wall.

“Fuck you and fuck your secrets,” Leon hissed.

“Give me dinner first,” Wesker purred.

He had been backing up during this whole conversation, Wesker gliding after him at a sedate pace. Now a silver glimmer in the corner of his eye caught his attention: moonlight, shining on the stone steps to his left. The steps were through a familiar-looking archway, one flanked by twin busts, with the iron teeth of a gate poking out of one side. Beyond the arch he could see the very tip of a lever.

If he could only move quick enough, he might have a chance.

“Let me ask you something,” Leon said, groping for a distraction. “Those snakes on your back. They a mark from your master?”

The vampire’s eyes narrowed.

“Not Spencer,” Wesker said.

“You know what? They suit you.”

On that note he darted off to the side, towards the stairs. Wesker flashed forward to intercept, moving so fast his body appeared as nothing but a blur of smoke. Leon had been anticipating the reaction. He was ducking and rolling before Wesker actually reappeared in front of him, safely dodging the vampire’s grasping hands. He shot past Wesker, cleared the gate, and laid hand on the lever. One hard yank activated the mechanism. The gate closed behind him directly in Albert Wesker’s face.

Wesker curled his fingers around the bars, glowering through them at Leon. His eyes were still dark with hunger, even after the two people he’d drained completely.

“You’re absolutely set on making things hard for yourself, I see,” Wesker said.

“Sorry. Giving in to a pushy guy just isn’t my style,” Leon told him. “I’ve been told I’m stubborn.”

“Understatement,” Wesker replied peevishly. He rested his forehead against the iron, his narrow eyes regarding Leon with both frustration and, dare he say, a grudging respect?

Emboldened by the barrier between them, Leon shot a cocky salute as he backed up the stairs.

“Next time you want to neck with a guy, maybe ask first? Consent is king!” And then he jogged off, because he didn’t entirely trust the gate to withstand Wesker’s strength.

He heard metal twisting behind him and ran even faster.

* * *

By some minor miracle, Leon was finally able to escape the castle. The stairs had led up to a wide circular garden with a pair of gates leading to the outside. He’d had to hunt a little to find the mechanism that opened them, but now he was finally outside. The sight of the moon had never been so welcome.

He had already descended the winding path from the castle and was just crossing the wooden bridge that led back into town. Water roared below him, the river wild and swollen from the recent rainstorms.

All he had to do was get to the village, grab his truck, and jet out of here. If he was lucky, he could do it without getting seen by the villagers. Otherwise--

**_“Leon.”_ **

The voice hit his spine like a hammer, sending painful ripples all up and down his skeleton. He froze up, back so straight you could have thrust a pole down it. Muscle and tendon twisted against his will, forcing him to turn around.

Saddler stood there at the mouth of the bridge, purple robes billowing in a non-existent breeze. His eyes were crimson headlights in the moonlight, glowing so bright they almost blinded. One withered hand rose to beckon.

**_“Come back, Leon.”_ **

He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to, but Saddler’s blood rose up inside him, crawled inside his nerves and bent them against his will. His legs took one treacherous step forward.

**_“Yes, that’s it. Come to me, Leon.”_ **

_“Or you could not.”_ A second voice--same resonance, different timber--disrupted the spell as subtly as an axe through a window. Wesker’s voice. _“Do not go to him, Leon.”_

He felt suspended, suddenly, as if caught by two strings pulling him in opposite directions. He could go to Saddler, or he could not. Those were his choices. He could obey one command or the other. Except, Wesker’s pull was weaker. Leon grabbed for it, mentally, struggled to obey that command because it was what he wanted. He didn’t want to obey Saddler. He wanted to run.

With the dimming shadow of Wesker’s will working over him, he was able to rally just enough strength to force his body into an agonized side-lurch that sent him over the edge of the bridge. The crash of water over him broke the spell completely. Some old legends said a vampire couldn’t cross running water. It was one of those old rumors that the league had never been able to absolutely prove or disprove, just like the why and how behind a vampire’s aversion to holy items.

Whether Saddler had lost his grip because of the water, or he’d chosen to give up because there was no way he could stop the river from swiftly carrying Leon away, the result was the same. Leon spent what felt like twenty harrowing minutes keeping his head above the water before he washed ashore on a gravelly river bend.

He spent a little while lying there, just coughing out water and gasping in air. It took an embarrassingly long time for him to notice the presence standing just a few feet away from him. He lifted his head, squinting through sopping wet bangs at the tall figure of Wesker watching him.

“Even after all that, you’re still after me?”

“How little you think of me. I’m only here to honor our agreement.”

“You tried to kill me,” Leon reminded him.

“Only playing.” Wesker waved his fingers. “You have no idea how boring it is to hang from the ceiling all day for nearly a decade. I had to blow off steam somehow.”

Leon didn’t believe him, but he had more important questions right now.

“What was that back there? Saddler tried to command me but you disrupted it somehow.”

“Did I not promise I would give you a demonstration if we ran into Saddler?” Wesker smirked. “You should be able to piece it together now. You seem like a smart enough hunter.”

“...two masters,” Leon said slowly.

“Yes. When a servant torn between two vampires with equal power over him is given conflicting commands, he is able to choose which to follow. This is how I was able to turn on my sire. I found something older and stronger than him, to override his will over me. Something that doesn't care enough about the world at large to control what I do. And so I have found something like freedom.”

“When you bit me, you made a link to me,” Leon realized. “But your voice is weaker than Saddler’s.”

“I did not have enough of your blood. You were too stingy with it, remember?”

Leon narrowed his eyes.

“You just ate at least two people, and you’re still after my blood? Just how hungry are you?”

“If all I wanted was your blood, I could simply take it from you. The deal was that we both be free, wasn’t it? I have fed enough that I can be certain of my control. I will take enough to solidify a bond between us, and then you won’t have to worry about Saddler anymore.”

“And what are you getting out of this?”

Wesker smirked.

“You won’t believe I simply want to thank you for freeing me?”

He opened his mouth to express, very colorfully, the full extent of his doubt, and that was when Saddler’s voice rang through him a second time.

**_“Leon.”_ **

This time the strength of it knocked him over. He curled up against the ground, hands fisting in gravel, shuddering under the agony of resisting that voice.

**_“Leon. Come here.”_ **

_“No. Stay here.”_

Every fiber of him wanted to get up and run straight back to the castle, and only the soft whisper of Wesker’s voice kept him tethered to this spot. But he managed it. He outlasted that horrible pressure against his spine, and it finally lifted, leaving him gasping on his knees.

“Still at it, is he?” Wesker observed coolly. “I’m afraid I burned up most of your blood already. My will in you is weak, and fading. It will give out long before Saddler’s influence does.”

“So you do want more of my blood,” Leon croaked.

“I’m not terribly hungry. After all, I did just eat 4 people. But, I could be persuaded to take a little more.” He grinned.

Leon believed him, despite his instincts. After all, if all Wesker wanted was Leon’s blood he could have attacked while Leon was fighting Saddler in his head.

“Fine. Just--fine.” He struggled to his feet and stood still, waiting for Wesker to approach. The vampire only raised his eyebrows in response. Leon wilted somewhat. “You’re going to make me beg for it, aren’t you?”

“I understand consent is all the rage these days.”

Bastard. Leon could see Wesker’s lips twitching, straining to restrain a smirk. He closed the distance between them and shoved his wrist out, glowering.

“I’m not saying the words. For all I know that’ll activate some heeby-jeebie bullshit that turns me into an ultra-thrall.”

Wesker smiled, amused and--dare he say--fond? Gently, he closed his fingers around Leon’s wrist, soothing over the pulsing vein with a thumb. Not so gently, he yanked the arm, reeling Leon in to him so he could grab the human around the shoulders and sink his teeth into Leon’s neck.

Leon gasped, grabbing on to Wesker’s shoulders and digging his nails in. Heartbeat by heartbeat the burning sting of it soothed away into blissful numbness. The tension drained out of his muscles, and he leaned into the monster draining his life away. This time, he did not struggle to maintain consciousness. He had no choice but to trust Wesker to stop before he took too much. After spending all night running and fighting, it was almost...nice, to just let go.

He couldn’t say how much time had passed when the fangs drew out of his neck. It felt like they’d been standing in that embrace for hours, but he knew a vampire could drain their victim much more quickly than that. His muscles were all too liquid to move just yet, so he hung there, clinging to the vampire and waiting for his head to clear.

"Your blood is so sweet," Wesker purred into his jaw. "It would be so much sweeter if only that other leech hadn't poisoned it."

"Not my fault," Leon groaned, still half-drunk on the vampire's venom.

Wesker laved over the bite marks with his tongue, encouraging the wounds to seal. Leon shuddered at the sensation.

“I suppose I should send you on your way. Your _friends_ will be so worried.” Leon stirred, uneasy about the strange emphasis Wesker had put on ‘friends.’

“But before I do...” he pressed a finger to Leon’s lips. “ _You will not tell anyone that you have become a thrall.”_

Leon blinked up at him. The command tied a lump in his throat and burned its way into his bones. Distantly he could feel Saddler stir at the other end of the connection, but he did not dispute the command. At once, Leon understood the problem with this ‘loophole’. If both vampires agreed on anything, he would have no choice but to follow the command.

Wesker was smiling again when he pulled away, insufferably smug.

“Feel free to tell them anything else about Saddler’s little operation here, or his new blood magic, or even my presence. But do not tell them you have been bitten.”

“You son of a bitch,” Leon growled. If he couldn’t tell them he’d been bitten, and he didn’t act like a thrall, he wouldn’t be able to convince anyone to lock him up for their own safety.

Wesker smoothed away a stray droplet from Leon’s neck and brought his thumb to his mouth to suck it clean, eyes sparkling with dark mirth.

“One of these days I’m going to see both of you staked,” Leon promised him.

“How ungrateful of you. You know, I could simply choose not to oppose Saddler the next time he orders something of you.”

Leon brushed his hair back out of his face so Wesker could see how intensely he was glaring.

“I’ll make sure Saddler dies first.”

“And then I’ll have you all to myself. I’ll be looking forward to it.”

Wesker vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving Leon alone with the sinking feeling that he was still just as fucked as he had been at the start of this whole mess.

* * *

Epilogue

“Wesker?” Chris’s shout was so loud it seemed to shake the whole room around them. “You said you unleashed _Wesker?_ ”

“...you know him?” Leon asked. He was sitting on a bed in the medical wing, holding still while Rebecca patched up all his minor wounds. He hadn’t been able to tell her where all the blood soaking his collar had come from, not for lack of trying. His mouth would just lock up every time. She’d checked his neck for wounds and concluded it must have come from some monster he’d killed.

All the hunters on duty were gathered in a loose half-circle around him, and they’d been intent listeners while he gave his report.

“He’s the one who attacked my sister!” Chris barked.

“What?” Startled, Leon looked away from the bandage Rebecca was wrapping around his palm. “Are you sure?”

From her chair in the corner, Jill sighed. “Remember that group of crazy sorcerers who were trying to make some kind of super-vampire?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Remember how the dhampir leading our team turned out to be a traitor in league with them?”

“Oh. That Wesker.” Leon slumped a little under the weight of that revelation.

“Yeah! That Wesker!” Chris said. His indoor voice had jumped out the window the moment Leon mentioned the name Wesker.

“Hang on, I didn’t even tell you what he looked like. It might not be the same guy. Wesker’s not that uncommon a last name. Besides, this guy was definitely a full-powered vampire.” He’d known enough dhampirs to be able to tell the difference. Hell, he never would have survived Raccoon if he hadn’t crossed paths with one.

“Blond hair?” Chris asked.

“Strong jaw?” Rebecca added.

“Cheekbones that could cut glass?” Jill said.

“....OK, yeah, it’s that Wesker.”

“I guess now we know where he’s been,” Jill said. “He’s been quiet for so long I was afraid he was up to something. God knows what he’s going to do now that he’s free.”

“I can’t believe he didn’t kill you,” Rebecca said.

“Honestly?” Leon sighed. “Neither can I.”

* * *

Epilogue 2: Krauser’s Lament

“Boss!”

Wesker turned from his contemplation of the moon, surprised at the sudden appearance of an unexpected subordinate. Even more surprising was the shadowy arm replacing his prosthetic, the red glow in his eyes, and the lack of a drumming heartbeat from his chest. Wesker tilted his head.

“Krauser. I see you’ve found someone to finish turning you.”

He kept his tone light, observational. Krauser tensed, no doubt hearing the accusation threading between the words.

“I came looking for you, but these clowns had already moved in after Spencer left. I had to make some...concessions to get anywhere.” Krauser contemplated his new arm. It was an amazingly intricate construct, feathers of shadow and blood woven together in a tightly packed coil that mimicked a human arm. “I didn’t want them to catch on that you were here. Had to make up some excuse to stick around.”

“Hmm. What a coincidence, that your cover story got you precisely what you always wanted from me.”

Krauser didn’t react to that, stoic as always, only watching Wesker carefully with his newly red eyes. There was no guilty start and no excuses. Jack was not a naturally conniving sort of man. If he hadn’t already betrayed the hunters by coming to Wesker in the first place, Wesker might believe the old soldier wasn’t capable of scheming.

Wesker reigned his own bitterness in with effort. He was resentful that someone else had turned Krauser. He had enjoyed feeding from Jack. Even if he had not twisted the man into a thrall, it was comforting to be able to tap into his mind and know his thoughts held no treachery. That his good soldier was still devoted to his cause. Now he had been denied not only that, but the execution of the rite itself. He had been looking forward to that, one day, when Jack’s humanity was no longer useful to him.

He took Krauser’s new arm into his hands, turning it over and tracing his fingers along the wispy surface. In the past, a touch like this would have sent Jack’s heart racing. Now Wesker heard nothing but the pulse of shadow under his fingertips. “The blood magic of this clan is something extraordinary. I suppose you have provided me with a means to study it,” Wesker consoled himself.

Jack’s hand caught his wrist.

“You know this isn’t all that I wanted,” he insisted, low and intense, his eyes burning into Wesker’s own. A furrow knit his brow, and his eyes flicked to the side, distracted by the black burns on Wesker’s wrist. The rough hand gentled its grip and slid downward, away from the charcoal flesh. As if touching such an injury with anything but sacred trinkets could further harm Wesker.

“What happened?” Jack asked softly.

“Sergei got the drop on me.” Wesker’s face twisted at the memory. “They were able to chain me up in the basement.”

“I was searching the basement,” Krauser said, frustrated.

“I suppose you did not go low enough.” Wesker took his arm back, releasing his grasp on Krauser’s new limb at the same time.

“A hunter freed me. Ironic, isn’t it? Imprisoned by my own kind, and freed by our common enemy.”

“A hunter?” Krauser grunted.

“Ahh--that’s right. I suppose he must have been a friend of yours. He said his name was Leon.”

“It would be Leon.” Krauser’s expression was stony. “He’s the only one left alive. Why’d he free you?”

“He had no choice. We were both trapped behind a cave-in. He recognized that he did not have the strength to get out by himself.” Absently he rubbed at his bottom lip, remembering how Leon had tasted. Sweet blood made sweeter still by desperation and fear.

“Tch. Here I always thought Leon would rather die than help a vampire. I guess you never really know a man until his back’s against the wall.”

“You know him well?” Wesker asked, curious. Krauser was making a very interesting expression, like he had simultaneously sucked a lemon and accidentally kicked a puppy.

“He’s been my partner on more than one hunt. He’s the only one who still would partner with me, after...” Krauser waved the shadow arm.

“A friend of yours,” Wesker concluded.

Krauser didn’t answer that.

“Leon...” Krauser growled after a while, his eyes dark, staring a million miles away. “The man himself is fine. Strong. Brave. Smart. Everything you want from the person watching your back. It’s the way everyone else treats him that’s the problem.”

“Do I detect a stir of envy?” Wesker circled around behind Jack, leaning over his shoulder.

“Everyone thinks he’s so special. He survived the siege of Raccoon, you know. They pretend they don’t give him any special privileges because of it, but everyone knows he’s the hero. Their precious golden boy. The rest of us are just disposable grunts compared to him.”

A cruel smirk pulled at Wesker’s cheek.

“Won’t it be interesting to see their reaction...” he murmured to himself. _“IF_ they find out.”

Krauser looked at him, silently asking explanation.

“Saddler’s influence has infected him. And so have I. He’s taken his first step to thralldom with two different vampires. I wonder which of us he’ll fall to?”

The news did not cheer Krauser. If anything, he looked even grimmer than before. Wesker studied his soldier, cataloging this reaction. Mentally, he wrote a big fat “it’s complicated” on the relationship line between Leon and Krauser.

“I wish he wasn’t the one they sent with me tonight,” Krauser said.

“Second thoughts?” he asked.

Krauser looked away.

“I chose my side.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know the ending doesn't really feel like an ending but this is just a oneshot.  
> I've still got that companion piece for SaS half-finished, as well as some other stuff in the works, however 2021 has not been very productive for me so far. Everything going on has been so stressful, I've just been sitting around playing DMC instead.
> 
> Fun fact: this fic's working title was "Christmas Vampire Bullshit."


End file.
